From the Cali Rabbit emblem to the patterns of the pool tiles, from the rooftop terrace’s view over the city of Albufeira to the unique décor of the D’Spa, by way of the originality that makes up and defines every space in the Hotel California, and not forgetting the building’s fabulous location… So many attractive features in a hotel with a youthful and cheerful spirit that entrusted us with making its communications more appealing and effective in reaching its target audience.
Hotels in the Algarve generally benefit from having a fabulous location in close proximity to the sea and the Hotel California is no exception. This city-centre hotel in Albufeira gives its guests the best of both worlds: an enjoyable beach holiday and plenty of culture and city life to explore as well.
Our challenge, then, was to advertise the renovation and reopening of this once-emblematic hotel in Albufeira’s “Old Town”, now a member of the Details Hotels & Resorts Group, highlighting its young, cheerful and contemporary image in order to attract a clientele entirely different from that which would have stayed here in the past.
As well as advertising and creating a buzz around its grand reopening, our job, as the hotel’s communications agency, was also to create and implement short-, medium- and long-term communications and marketing strategies, in order to help the hotel achieve the best possible results.
To ensure the hotel would make a successful entry into the market, we created its new brand identity. The Cali Rabbit emblem came about as the result of our desire to create a genderless feature, something that everyone would be able to identify with and which would symbolise the identity and opening, equality and youthful spirit of the hotel and, by extension, its target audience.
Our challenge was to advertise the renovation and reopening of this once-emblematic hotel in Albufeira’s “Old Town”
As an adult-friendly hotel, the aim was to portray the California in a sexy, cheerful, young, happy and dynamic tone, appealing to the desire to live life to the full, enjoying all of the small pleasures it can give us, and which can be experienced at the Hotel California.
To reflect precisely this, we created the campaign “The California Experience” to accompany the opening of the hotel. In it, we highlighted various leisure options in the Algarve in combination with our advertising of the hotel’s spaces, using various platforms, including social media, a landing page, paid advertisements in google ads and on social media, newsletters and press releases.
For the hotel website, we initially created a structure that was independent of the Details Hotels & Resorts Group’s other sites, featuring a clean line and totally differentiated from the Group’s usual style. The aim was to create a very different type of communication for this particular hotel, in comparison to its peers within the Group.
We are now in the process of developing a new website, this time within the Details Group structure and presenting a hybrid style, somewhere between the “simple” and informal lines of the California and the more elegant and formal style of the Details Group.
Where merchandising is concerned, we would also highlight the creation of brand-related graphic elements for use on items of hotel merchandising, some more commercially orientated and others more organic, taking into account environmental concerns.
Lastly, we would mention the recent brand revamping and menu design for the Wine&Sushi Restaurant, whose main site is located in Albufeira Marina but which also has a space on the first floor of the Hotel California.
